Approximately 65 percent of US mothers with children aged six and under are employed. Although their ability to maintain employment generally depends on nonparental childcare, childcare has been relatively little-studied as it relates to mothers’ employment in the United States. With the NLSY97 (N = 2,108), I track childcare use, employment, second births, and coresidential partnership among women who are initially employed following a first birth. I use Group-Based Multi-Trajectory Modeling to identify the five most common pathways by which women combine and sequence these behaviors. I investigate the sociodemographic characteristics predicting each pathway. Three groups of women maintain high or moderate employment and make high use of childcare while their children are young: highly employed, partnered mothers who have a second birth (closely aligned with the privileged “having it all” norm); highly employed mothers of one child, about half of whom are single; and moderately employed (some full-time, some part-time) primarily single mothers who have a second birth. Two groups of women make less use of childcare when initially employed: partnered mothers who have a second birth and largely exit the labor force (closely aligned with the privileged “stay-at-home-mom” norm), and primarily single mothers with some part-time employment and one child. White and Hispanic women, and those with Bachelor’s degrees, are most likely to mirror the “having it all” norm. White women and those with Bachelor’s degrees are most likely to mirror the “stay-at-home mom” norm. I argue that improved access to adequate, affordable childcare could help to offset gender, socioeconomic, and race/ethnic employment disparities in the United States.

中文翻译：

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女性工作/家庭途径中幼儿使用托儿服务的模式：基于组的多轨迹建模方法

大约 65% 的有 6 岁及以下孩子的美国母亲就业。尽管他们维持就业的能力通常取决于非父母的育儿，但由于与美国母亲的就业有关，育儿的研究相对较少。使用 NLSY97 (N = 2,108)，我跟踪在第一次生育后最初就业的女性的育儿使用、就业、第二次生育和同居伴侣关系。我使用基于组的多轨迹建模来确定女性组合和排序这些行为的五种最常见的途径。我调查了预测每个途径的社会人口学特征。三组妇女在子女年幼时保持高或中等就业率，并经常使用儿童保育服务：高就业率、高就业率、有第二胎的伴侣母亲（与特权“拥有一切”规范密切一致）；一个孩子的高就业母亲，其中大约一半是单身；和中等就业（一些全职，一些兼职）主要是二胎的单身母亲。两组女性在最初就业时较少使用儿童保育服务：二胎并在很大程度上退出劳动力市场的伴侣母亲（与享有特权的“全职妈妈”规范密切相关），主要是单身母亲兼职工作和一个孩子。白人和西班牙裔女性以及拥有学士学位的女性最有可能反映“拥有一切”的规范。白人女性和拥有学士学位的女性最有可能反映“全职妈妈”的规范。我认为改善获得足够的、